Wanting Things We Don’t Have The Sangha UK 250 09 15 24

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Transcript

Dhammarato: So welcome to the Sunday afternoon call. This is Sunday morning in Europe and afternoon here in Thailand. And I’m good. Glad to see a nice crowd today. We’ve got 11 on this call and that the first thing that we’ll talk about is something that Ivan mentioned that I’ve put into a topic called the Second Noble Truth. And what is the Second Noble Truth? Is the cause of dissatisfaction. The satisf. Dissatisfaction exists. It exists all over the place. It exists, in fact, with animals. Animals get dissatisfied. Humans, we really are expert at being dissatisfied. We were taught to be dissatisfied. We were taught by people who were dissatisfied. And generally they’re dissatisfied and want something and they want it from us. And so we buy into the story and become dissatisfied. Richard Dawkins had a mean, had a way of expressing it. He was thinking about it in the terms of genes, and he used the word meme and talks about it in the form of a mental virus that is spread from one person to another, sort of like bad ideas that we propagate, bad ideas from one person to the next. And that we got really, let us say, all virused up and sick. When we were children, our parents made us ill, gave us memes and mental viruses. And children are susceptible to diseases. And so we pick that stuff up as children, and then we go around the rest of our lives spreading that disease to other children and adults, whoever we’re around, until we recognize that we do have a disease, a spiritual disease. And that spiritual disease then has the general symptom of being dissatisfied. Things are not good enough. And in those memes that we’re talking about, those mental viruses, some of those viruses has to do with, well, why am I dissatisfied? It’s his fault, it’s God’s fault. It’s the Devil made me do it. We’re always looking for something on the outside, rather than recognizing it’s always inside, that if there is a God, he’s within you. If there is a devil, he’s in you. The kingdom of God is. It is at hand, or the kingdom of God is within you. And yet we are taught that all of our problems and all of our worries and actually all of our pleasures are to be found outside in the world. This is a virus, a mental virus that we have. And so when we understand the nature of Dukkha, which means the nature of our dissatisfaction, we’ll begin to see that we made it all up. Reality is, everything’s already okay. You’ve got air to breathe, you’ve got the gravity that keeps you on the ground, keeps the air around and everything is okay. But we’ve been poisoned by this mental virus that says that no, things are not okay, they need to be fixed. And it’s your responsibility to fix. Often it’s your fault. Or we say, no, it’s not my fault, it’s somebody else’s fault. And we’re always finding fault then where in fact there’s really no fault. Now, Ivan, you once said that the cause of dukkha is clinging. What did you say? Oh, the cause of dukkha is we cause it ourselves.

Speaker B: Right?

Dhammarato: Is what we call it ourselves. We. We made it out. Well, let’s be very specific that the cause of dukkha has three things and they’re deeply interrelated with each other. All right? The three things are greed, which is you’re talking about in the words of craving. But craving comes from wanting and wanting comes from liking. And when you really like something, that’s what we call lust. Yeah, all right, so we’re lustful. We want things. We like it, we like it a lot. And then the other side of the coin is, is that there’s a lot of stuff that we don’t like. For instance, if you like something, then you don’t like doing without it. If you don’t like something, if you don’t like a sensation in the body, then you want for it to go away. In that regard, lust and ill will are interconnected or the. They’re the two things, two sides of the same coin. Now the coin flips, and we don’t know which way it’s going to go. That’s the ignorance and that’s the important one. The second noble truth actually teaches is the reason why we have greed, wanting things we don’t have and trying to get rid of things that we have to put up with is because we blame those things ignorantly. Rather than recognizing, when I want something, I’m making a choice about that I want it. An example is you go to a restaurant and you look at the menu to figure out what it is that you want. And you find something on the menu and you like it. You say, oh, I want that. And then you come to the waiter, or the waiter comes and he says, what will you have? And you’ll say, oh, I want this on the menu. And the waiter says, sorry, we’re out of that right now. And now you’re unhappy, you’re disappointed because you didn’t get what you wanted. And five minutes ago you didn’t even know what you wanted. That’s why you were looking at the menu. And so look at the ignorance. We’re not even keeping track of what we’re doing. We’re not remembering that we move from one thing to another. And when things don’t go the way that we want it to, we probably is, because we didn’t even want. Here’s what I mean by that, is that things are just the way they are. And then we decide, maybe because we see it or whatever, it’s still the way that it was. But what has changed is our own mind. Now I want it. And for some reason we kind of get the idea that I wanted it forever, when in fact the want, the desire, is brand new. It wasn’t the menu that changed, it’s my desire that’s changed. And so the. The practice of the annapanasanti is to be become aware of this second noble truth that the reason the causes for our dukkha is almost always, let me use the correct word for it, stupidity. We are pain in pain because we’re stupid. We forget. And so what we’re practicing then, in fact, one of the most important quantities of the practice that we’re doing is to start to remember to look at how you yourself are changing ignorantly. The things are changing and you don’t even know that. So now we’re going to start watching the things as they change and recognize that my relationship to it, I want it or I don’t want it, is also changing. So that we don’t blame the waiter for not having on the menu what I wanted, when in fact it wasn’t on the. Or it was on the menu, but the menu was done months ago. Today they don’t have it, or maybe they’ve changed and now they don’t have it. But I only got to want it when I saw it on the menu. Well, now you can take that out of the restaurant and see it out on the street. You see somebody and now you want them. You see a car and now you want it. You see an object and now you want it. All right? And that connection is called perception. We see something and because we see it, we perceive it as desirable. And so we start liking it and then we want it. And that’s when we start to crave it. And we crave things because we don’t have it. So basically you could say then that the main cause of dissatisfaction is wanting things we don’t have. And we don’t think about it, we don’t actually crave it all the time. We Only do that from time to time. Like, the idea is you’re looking at the menu, and because you look at the menu, you see that delicious food on the menu. You think it’s delicious, you think you want it, and now the waiter says they don’t have it. The easy thing to do is just to choose something else on the menu. You don’t have to blame the waiter because it didn’t have it. The waiter hasn’t changed at all. He didn’t have that thing. Whether you wanted it or not is your own desires that changed ignorantly. That’s the whole point about the second noble truth is that it’s caused by ignorance that we’re not watching what we’re doing. And so the quality that we’re looking for here then is to begin to remember, to begin to collect our thoughts into a certain boundary so that we can remember them better. If you’ve got to keep track of 10,000 things, that’s hard to do. But if you only have to keep track of a dozen things, that’s much easier. Now, in Bandler and Grinder, they talk about the. The seven plus or minus two rule. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? The seven plus or minus two. All right, the seven plus or minus two rule says that you can only track about seven things at a time. And maybe you can do it with nine, but a lot of people can only do five. So someplace between five and nine is about the only things that you can track. And here’s a good example of that. When a boss has a dozen employees, he can’t track them. He needs to reduce the number of employees that he’s the manager of, about half of that down to about six. But a good manager can track six employees, but he can’t track nine or 10. And he is really out of it when he’s trying to track 12. Well, guess what? We’re really lucky because we only need to track four. Well within our scope. All right, what are the four things that we need to keep track of? And when I say track, I’m talking about to keep remembering to keep coming back to those four things over and over and over and over again. Let me see David picking on you again. What are the four things that we need to track?

Speaker C: We need to track reality, Right?

Dhammarato: What’s real about you?

Speaker C: What’s real about me?

Dhammarato: Pardon?

Speaker C: You’re asking what is real about me?

Dhammarato: Me? Yeah. What’s real about you? All right, Mikey, what are the four things that we need to track?

Speaker D: The breath.

Dhammarato: That’s One part of one of them. That’s a big hint.

Speaker D: In, breath, out, breath.

Dhammarato: What’s breathing?

Speaker D: What’s breathing?

Dhammarato: Let’s, let’s start with rib cages, muscles. What is all of that? A part of the body. All right, now we’re getting someplace. Now we’ve got one of them labeled. Back to you, David. What are the other three?

Speaker C: Vedana? Mind and mind objects.

Dhammarato: All right, so now we’ve got the four of them. What is it that we need to track? We need to track who you are. All of the reality about you is that you’ve got a body, you’ve got feelings, you’ve got an attitude, and you’ve got thoughts. Those are the four foundations of mindfulness. And in fact, the. That third one is often misunderstood. When they talk about the mind, the reality is that they’re talking about the state of mind. And the state of mind is your attitude. So when you’re tracking the breath, guess what? You’re basically tracking all of it. If you, if you, especially if you’re breathing long, you need to have the mind to get the body to breathe. It’ll breathe all by itself. You sleep all night, and the body keeps breathing. And it will breathe according to the habit that it’s developed. So if you start breathing long intentionally with the mind, then when you’re in bed at night sleeping, then the body will continue that habit of breathing long in and breathing out long. But if you don’t train it, then just whatever happens, that’s the kind of breath you have. So we only have to keep track of four things. And the four things are the body, the feeling, the mind, and the mind’s objects. Now, another way that we can talk about it is we can break those four things into five and talk about it as the five aggregates. And with the five aggregates, you have the feelings, you have the body, and then the mind state is broken into perception and consciousness. And also Sankara. Now Sankara. There’s three kinds of Sankara. One is the Sankaras in the body, how your body remembers things. For instance, if you’ve got a guitar player, the fingering technique that he uses to play the guitar is learned by the body. That if you play basketball, that dribbling action is something that the body picks up. You got to practice slowly to learn how to dribble. But then after a while, the body learns that the same thing is true for fingering on a piano or on a violin is called muscle memory. Who has ever heard of muscle memory before? Isn’t it interesting that the Buddha talked about muscle memory 2500 years ago, most specifically in the Sutta number 9 where they’re talking about bodily Sankaras. This is muscle memory. And there’s a lot of muscles in the body that has to do a whole lot of memory. And many times it needs to be trained over and over and over again. But there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s not trained. For instance, let us say that you have a very famous violinist who is on stage quite often and he knows all of the big hits. He knows the Brahms violin concerto, he knows the Mendelssohn violin concerto, he knows the Beethoven violin concerto, and he also knows the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. These are the big four. But guess what? When that violinist leaves that stage and puts his violin away, he’s probably not very mindful of his hands because the hands had learned that violin stuff. And so now he’s not paying attention to his hands. And so he may scratch, he may pick his nose absentmindedly. So this is where we come into the Satipatthana in the sense that it’s not that we have a lot of muscle memory and we rely upon that solely. Oh no. When we’re practicing correctly, we start to look at what your hands are doing, look at what your face is doing. See the expression on your face. If you’re scratching your nose, do it very slowly and very easily so that you know you’re scratching your nose. Enjoy the hell out of scratching your nose. But most people just do that absent mindedly. So paying attention to what the body is doing. When you’re rat, when you’re grasping, stretching, reaching, whatever the hands are doing, become aware that that’s what the hands are doing. Start watching. Remember to watch what the body is doing. Deidre, Go ahead.

Speaker E: It sounds to me like you’re almost saying that the mind is a muscle as well. Is it a muscle? It’s something you train.

Dhammarato: Why not sure. The body, the mind is a muscle. It doesn’t let us say pick up 10 pound blocks of wood or whatever, but it does have its own memory. Then in fact, you could say that the mind is a chemical process. A lot. In fact, to be real, it’s an electrochemical process. Well, what is a muscle? Isn’t that also an electrochemical process?

Speaker E: I like to think that a muscle is more dumb. Blood flows in, blood flows out, but it dumb memory.

Dhammarato: Well, if it was really. Well, it depends upon which muscles you’re talking about and how well trained they are. All right. In fact, the example that I’ll use right now that before I became a monk, I had been practicing martial arts, especially Okinawan karate called goju gojirai. And as I’m speaking about it, the muscles are beginning in my arm to remember that. So that whatever activities that the martial artists would do, like go chi, go, like that, that’s built right into the arm, built right into the muscles. And so just by thinking about it, the arm wants to go back in and start doing that stuff. It’s built into the muscle memory, all right? And so it’s also built into the mind as a kind of muscle. So, yes, the muscles do actually have a mind of their own, just like the fingertips. The fingertips actually have more neurons than the human eye. And so we can be very, very sensitive and people who can do things like playing a violin. In fact, there is one very famous violinist. I can’t think of his name right now. He’s an elderly guy, but his hands are like hawks of ham. He’s got huge hands. He’s got the kind of hands to play a string bass. One of the uprights, you know, these. This kind of thing where it takes the muscle, but he plays the violin. And how he can have those muscles of those giant hands trained so that he can make such minute changes that he can keep those fingers moving and keep everything in tune is just. Is beyond me that he has trained his hands to do that. So the example that I would use now is the pianist is now in a piano bar, and he’s playing part of his repertoire. He’s got maybe 100, maybe 200 tunes that he’s practicing plays. And upon demand, he can play any one of these pieces of music. And then a nice young woman in a slinky evening dress comes up and leans over the piano and starts talking to him with trash talk. You know what I’m talking about? Hi, handsome. You know, that kind of stuff. And this piano player returns her conversation and talks to her with. Without missing a note. Without missing a note on the piano. How can he do that? Is because he’s paying attention with his mind to the woman while the hands are playing what they know how to play, all right? And then after she leaves and the piano player is still playing, and then Sergeant Friday and his sidekick come in and start interrogating this guy about a crime that happened recently. And there he is, still playing the piano while he’s being involved in a police investigation. So those are the two sides of it. One is the pretty girl talking to him. He doesn’t miss a note. And now the cops are in there investigating him and he still doesn’t miss a note. He’s paying attention to the cops now, but the piano playing is done automatically. But when he leaves the piano and goes home, guess what? Now he’s going to scratch, he’s going to itch, he’s going to pick up stuff sloppily. He’s going to set his keys down and forget where he laid them. He’s not now paying attention to his hands, that in fact, while he was playing that music, he wasn’t paying attention to his hands, they were doing their own thing through muscle memory that in fact, I’ve been in a situation to where I have been playing the piano and I start thinking about playing the piano and then the hands get screwed up. You have to let the hands go do the job that they were trained to do. But in the case of Annapanasati, we need to start looking in the here. Now what are the hands doing? Yes, Jamie, go ahead.

Speaker B: I don’t know if you can hear me well, but yeah, I was going to say that. I guess, you know muscle memories in the nervous system as well. So it’s all part of the central nervous system. But the key thing is some things are unconscious. Like if you get really good at piano, like you don’t need to be consciously playing the piano, it just happens by itself. And then all of those things, like you’re scratching, picking your nose. It’s what you do when you’re not paying attention.

Dhammarato: You’re still not paying attention. You’re not paying attention when he plays the piano. You’re not paying attention when he’s not playing a piano. He only paid attention when he was practicing the piano, when he was learning how to play the piano. And then once the hands were trained, he no longer pays attention to them. So this is where the Buddha comes back in and says, oh, no, we need to continue to pay attention to what the body’s doing. We need to keep paying attention to what’s happening with the body. For instance, people will have anxiety. And anxiety, by the way, is not just a mental state, it’s a physical body state. It’s a feeling state, it’s a thought state and it’s also a mental attitude state. And the physical part of it is, is that blood, because of adrenaline, has got no place to go. You’ve got adrenaline in the body and it feels tight. Our muscles tense up. The way to say it is all dressed up for fight and no place to go. Okay, we have anxiety as an example. We have anxiety when the boss walks up. Well, anxiety in the old jungle days a hundred thousand years ago. When the boss comes, what do you do? You hit him in the face. When that snake comes up, you grab it by his head and throw it out. But when the boss comes up, you can’t do that. And so there you are, all ready for fight or flight with no place to go. And we do that by habit. And in fact, it’s not when the boss comes up in the office. When you’re sitting there at the office and the boss comes up. No, I’m talking about the boss. That comes up in your mind even when you’re not at the office. And so the boss comes in and that adrenaline comes into the body. And most people are not paying attention to it. And so they get uptight, they get anxious, they have anxiety, and they’re not even aware that there’s this relationship between the thought of the boss coming into the mind and all this adrenaline that’s flowing in the body. So this is the connection that we’re beginning to understand that needs to be made is with the saddipatthana is not just to see the body and seeing the feelings and seeing the mind states and seeing the mind’s objects, but also see how they interrelate and connect together to make a unified whole of a human being. That our thought affects the body, the body, and the sensation of the body affects our feelings. We don’t like feeling anxious and uptight. And then we don’t understand that we feel anxious and uptight because we thought about anxious and uptight things like the boss coming in to where in fact the real point was the attitude of being a victim to the boss. If you’re the best friend of the boss and when the boss comes into your mind, you’re not going to have that anxiety. And so you can see then that our attitude affects our thoughts, our thoughts affect the body, and the body affects the feelings. And around and around and around we go. This is then when we see the second noble truth is because we’re not paying attention to what’s really going on and this relationship between the mind and the body and the feelings. There are so many sutras where this is spoken about. One of them that I’m thinking about now is sutta number 1 11, which means one by one as they occur, because people ask me, well, which one do you work do you look at first? What’s the sequence? How do you know when to look at the body and when to look at the feelings? And when to look at the attitude. And the answer to that is, one by one, as they occur. As they occur. And if you’re sharp when they occur, you’re wise to it, you can see it. But mostly one by one, when these things occur, we’re ignorant to it. We don’t watch it, we don’t see it. So somebody will then say, oh, well, I’m practicing an upanna sati. And when I do, this anxiety comes up and the questions will start to come. And the first question is, is that anxiety new or is it old? And by a little bit of reflection, I’ll say, oh, no, this anxiety that I feel in meditation is not brand new caused by the meditation. It’s old stuff. And while I’m sitting in meditation, I actually can see that old pattern coming up. At least I can see part of the pattern of the feelings in the body, the sensations of the adrenaline and the muscle actions that it has. I feel tight in the chest is a way of expressing it. And then upon a little bit of reflection or say, oh, I was feeling most tight simply because I was thinking about the boss, then we can begin to say, well, wait a minute, I was having those thoughts about the boss because of my attitude towards the boss. And so here I have, starting with an attitude, coming into having thoughts, negative, unwholesome thoughts about the boss. Anxiety comes into the body, and I don’t like it. And there’s your four foundations of mindfulness all working together, all at the same time. They are interrelated. And a part of our practice then is to wake up to this, to recognize that that feeling of not liking came from a fairly complicated process. The second noble truth you can say then is all interrelated with the body. The feelings, the mental state that we’re in and the momentary thoughts that we have. Those thoughts can be so fleeting. You can have a thought that’s a tenth of a second, and within one second you’ve got adrenaline in the system. And when that adrenaline comes now, you feel uptight. And you can feel uptight for 10 seconds or an hour over a thought that happened in a tenth of a second that had an underlying attitude of being a victim. So anapanasati is actually. It’s in the anapanasati sutta. Why do we practice? Anapanasati is for the fulfillment of the satipatthana. In other words, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of our feelings, mindfulness of the mental states, mindfulness of the thoughts that we have. To be honest with you, it sounds Pretty complicated. It’s not as easy as I thought. You know, I’m glad that there’s not five or six or nine or ten of these things. Only four of them. And yet porn is way too much to keep track of, especially the body itself. Because we’ve got hands, we got feet. Here’s an example of that. Is agitation in the body an example of agitation in the body? Go to any bus station and look at feet. What do you see the feet doing when they’re sitting on a chair in the bus station? Aren’t those feet wiggling to show the anxiety and the restlessness of the person waiting on the bus? Wiggling, shaking back and forth. Can you begin to see that in your own body? Can you see when the body is agitated? Because only by seeing it can you put a stop to it. Now, we’re not talking about toe tapping in the sense of toe tapping to the music. We’re talking about toe tapping in the sense of toe tapping to the garbage in the mind. So the body is related to the mind in this way. Let’s put that to use. Rather than feeling all dejected and humble and all because it’s so complicated to keep track of. Let’s make lemonade out of that lemon. How do we do that? Is by being glad now that we can see what the body is doing. Because the body and its movement. Movements is a, let us say, a reflection or a mirror to what’s happening that’s happening on such a fast level that we can’t keep track of it. So we begin to pay attention to the body. We begin to pay attention to our speech. We begin to pay attention to any and everything that someone on the outside, let’s say that somebody’s got a camera set up watching you all the time. Or another example, very similar that when the. When the Southern Baptist Church parents tell their kid, God’s watching you. So imagine that there is God watching you or there is a movie camera on you. And then later you go back and review that you can see all of the movement of the body. Well, why can’t we do that in real time? I mean, if God is watching over me, if God is watching me, why can’t I watch too? Let’s look at what we’re doing. Let’s look at how the body shifts, trying to find comfort. Look at the way that we use our hands. One of the examples that I use is the guy is opening his. The door to his house with the key and he’s doing it in a hurry because maybe the phone is ringing. But nowadays you’ve got cell phones, and so the cell phone’s right in your pocket. You don’t have to open the door. But in the old days. So let’s talk about it in the sense that you got to go to the toilet. How many people have a toilet in their pocket? Nope. Nope. So now the guy’s got to open that door in a hurry and get to the toilet. And when he finishes his toilet duties, where’s his keys? Where did he put his keys? He wasn’t paying attention to his hands. He may have set those keys on the couch, and by the time he got to the couch, somebody sat on it. Now the keys are in the deep into the couch. He could have put them on the couch sloppily, and they fell off the side into the couch. And so the keys will get hidden away. He may have in fact, put them on the table, but he put them next to a newspaper, and now the newspaper is covering up the keys. He can’t see them anymore. How many of you, in fact, has changed this from keys to cell phones? How many of you have recognized that you don’t know where your cell phone is and you start looking for it? You know what’s the better way to do it? Is remember the last time you had that cell phone and remember where you put it. And then you only have to look in one place. You re. You look in the place where you last had it if you remember where you put. So this is one of the big best qualities of mindfulness of the body in practice. Now, we’re not talking about sitting in a meditation hall on the cushion with your hands folded, your eyes closed. We’re talking about practicing an upanna sati on the fly. Go about your business, but do it mindfully. Start watching what you’re doing. Start paying attention to the body’s movement and the shaking when you scratch your face, know you’re scratching your face. Now, in the satipatthana sutta, they talk about it in the sense of, let’s slow these behaviors down, because if you’re in a hurry, like to go to the toilet, you’re more than likely going to put the keys down not only in a hurry, but absentmindedly. But if you begin to train yourself, you train yourself to set those keys down mindfully so that you’ll know exactly where they are when you go back to find them. So this is mindfulness of the body in action. The next one we would use would be in that regard, mindfulness of your Speech, start looking at the kind of words that you’re using because we’re not quite fast enough to see the thoughts on the fly, but we can certainly start looking at the language that we’re using. So you can begin to train the language part of your mind to use wholesome language rather than unwholesome language. An example would be trying, oh, I’ll try it. Rather than saying, I’ll do it, I’ll do it is positive, I’ll try is unwholesome. In fact, trying has the quality of failure. Another one would be hard. Oh, it’s so hard. No it’s not. It’s only hard because I say it’s hard. So words like hard, try, job, those kind of things, those are kind of words. And what I advise everybody to do is to pick your own list of words that you’re going to start looking at. Start remembering to look at the kind of language that you use. And when you do, that will be like a, a conduit or maybe a mirror into the mind so that you can see the kind of language that you speak is because that’s the kind of thought language that you use. For instance, low class words. Vika Buddha Dasa is a big fan of low class words. He used a lot of low class words in Thai language, sometimes offensive. I like low class words too. But the low class words always have to do, not with the words themselves, but with your attitude. For instance, if you have the attitude of joy, you can say, well screw you. And it has no negative connotation, just joy. So look at not only the kind of language that you use, but also the tone of your mind state when you’re using those words. So a group of words you can start paying attention to would be like what the oh my God. Women really like the oh my God one for some reason. What, what, what? What kind of attitude do you have when you say what the fuck? What kind of attitude do you have when you say oh my God? These are the kind of things that we need to start paying attention to. And the, in the mouth, by the way, the voices that we have, that’s actually part of the body. So become aware of the facial gestures, the language that you’re using and all of that kind of stuff. Because if you can, you can begin to realize that most of the feelings that we have are associated with the body. In other words, we don’t like fear, we don’t like that adrenaline. And yet for some reason there’s an entire set of industries. One of is the Horror movie industry. Look how many people love to feel afraid. So it’s not the fear itself, that’s dukkha. It’s the fact that we don’t like it sometimes and other times we do like it. How about the Merry Go Round or nowadays they have the rides like oh, the Whirly dude and the, the roller coaster and the shoot de loop, those kind of things. And the kids, many people, they really like that. But what they’re actually doing is that they’re looking for the pleasure of the sensations in the body. They like that fear, they like that adrenaline rush. And yet when people are sitting in meditation and their mind is going loop de loop or on the, the roller coaster and the adrenaline comes up, then they don’t like it. Isn’t that amusing? And it all has to do back to our attitude. So the attitude then becomes possibly the predominant one. This is why in the Annapanasati Sutra, this. Look at what the mind states are doing. What’s your attitude? How do you feel? Not feeling in the sense of bethana, of liking and not liking, not in the sense of emotions. But start looking at your attitude towards life. This is the way that we start paying attention to the mind. They call it the sita. Now actually, in the Pali, there’s two kinds of minds. One is the mana, which would be the intellectual part. And then there is the sita, which is much more like the reptilian part of the brain, much more primitive, which is where the seed of our attitudes and our feelings, our emotions come from. And so if we begin to start paying attention to this. But how, how can we do that? Well, we can pay attention to that stuff because of the language that we use both internally, the thoughts and also the language that we have. So whenever something happens that’s unusual or a surprise, then our expletives. Listen to the expletives that you use. Are these happy expletives or are these negative expletives? Depends upon the mind state that you’re in. So let’s not be ignorant, let’s start being wise because we’re watching what’s going on. Yes, Dietrich, go ahead.

Speaker E: So if I, I listen correctly, then you’re actually saying it’s more the attitude than the words. You can say really very enthusiastically. What the fuck?

Dhammarato: Yeah, what the fuck? What the fuck?

Speaker E: But you can also.

Dhammarato: What the fuck? You know, so it’s not the language we use, it’s how we use it. It’s our attitude that’s underlying the language.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. So you, you Once gave me an assignment to watch for the word sorry. And I use that word a lot. I noticed. I used it a lot. I don’t use it that much anymore because sorry, that’s really like, oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for this. Sorry. Sorry to bother. Sorry. Blah, blah, blah.

Dhammarato: You were trained to use the word sorry. And sorry is definitely a victim’s word.

Speaker E: Yeah. So it’s sometimes somehow I’m blaming myself, so I’m sorry. Or it’s my fault. I’m sorry. But that’s also. Maybe you can also be. Oh, I’m sorry. Can also be in an attitude differently.

Dhammarato: That reminds me, by the way, of a skit that I think it was on Saturday Night Live. I forgot the actor that was doing it. But he came out on stage. I think, in fact, in this particular rendition, he came out on stage with a wooden crate kind of box around his head. On another occasion, he came out on stage with one of these funny arrows that has a metal loop around it so that it looks like that you’ve got an arrow going through your head. And so when the audience laughs, he very jokingly then says, well, I’m sorry. Very funny way. Okay. So he’s not sorry at all. He dressed that way on purpose just so that he can get a laugh out of the audience by saying that he’s sorry. So this is the way that we can begin to look at the kind of language that we’re using, which means that we need to pay attention to what we’re saying before we say it. So that we may have in time, some time to change our attitude without changing the language itself. We can change our attitude instantly within a mind moment, if we can see the attitude that we have. So the Buddha says it like this. The mind is the forerunner. And I would go so far as to say it’s the part of the mind that’s not just the words that we use in the thought forms. It’s our attitude. The attitude is the forerunner. Yeah. And so be careful about the things that you like and you don’t like. But how if it’s the forerunner, it’s so fast, how are we going to be able to catch up with what our attitude actually is? Is because we can see the way to relate to the body. We can see the kind of language that we’re using. We can see the kind of thoughts that we have. And underlying that is what you would call a tendency or a leaning. That, in fact, the word attitude is really good, not just for psychological use, but we use it in engineering. We use it in construction. Okay. In mechanical engineering, for instance, if you have a building that is upright, then when the ground shakes, it’s going to be okay. But if that. But if that building has an attitude, guess what? It’s going to fall in the direction of that attitude. Your mind is that. Day two, whichever wind way your mind is leaning, that’s how you’re going to crash land. That’s how you’re going to fall over is based upon the way you’re leaning. And so the noble mind. What’s the attitude of the noble mind? It’s up saying.

Speaker E: You’re actually saying that our attitude also determines the experience we’re going to have.

Dhammarato: Yes, absolutely. That we manufacture the experience that we’re going to have based upon our attitude. Okay, so here’s a little example of that. Little Johnny, he’s old enough to know what he wants, but he’s not old enough in Grandma’s mind. And so he wants to ride the roller coaster. And Granny says, okay, you can ride the roller coaster, but I’m going to ride with you. Granny doesn’t want to ride the roller coaster. And so while Johnny is waving his hands in the air, Whippy, Whippy. Granny’s clutching her purse. That’s because her attitude is different than little Johnny. Johnny’s having a ball and Granny is crushing her purse. And she went on that ride to, let us say, protect him. And it’s her that needs protection. So this is a way of recognizing that as our attitude that is kind of the forerunner. And at the same time, we recognize that all of these four foundations of mindfulness are interrelated, and we need to look at each one of them individually, one by one, as they occur. So back to the second noble truth. Now, it’s not our greed that causes our Dukkha. It’s not the greed that causes dissatisfaction, because you can have wise greed. But in fact, instead of using the word greed, let’s use the word attachment, because that sounds even worse. And yet in the Sutas, the Buddha talks about wise attachment. Let’s be careful about what we attach to. And one of the best things that we can attach to is this present moment. Let’s start clinging to that. Because if we could cling to this present moment, that means that we actually are alert, awake, not ignorant, looking at what’s going on. Another attachment that’s really worthwhile is the teachings of the Buddha. The Dhamma is worth attaching to. So you begin to see the Dhamma, Dhamma everywhere. And look at all those thoughts that stink. I think that’s a play on words from some piece of music or out of a book. What’s it? Moby Dick, Herman Melfield, you’ve heard that Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink. Well, we’re going to change that into Dhamma Dama everywhere look at thoughts that stink. Let’s start paying attention to what’s going on. Let’s pay attention to all of the stuff that needs to be paid attention to how we feel. Then in fact, let’s end this by talking about going back to that Sutta number 111, one by one as they occur. The end of the sutta is when Saputta figures out for himself by closely examining his own mind. They say in the fourth Jhna that it is perception that leads to feelings, that if you can stop perceiving things, you’ll stop feeling things about it. Now what we mean, perception is the transformation that we put reality through so that we can understand it. For instance, the word tree. If you see a tree, you only know it’s a tree because you’ve got the word tree and a whole lot of pictures of a whole lot of trees stored so that you can make the judgment that what I see is a tree. The reality is, is that I don’t have to call it anything, I can just see it, I don’t have to perceive it, I don’t have to name it and just let it be and, and be there with it without having to take control of it by giving it a name. But in fact that’s the discursive thought is to name things. This is why in the, the teaching of Paticha Samapata that the Pali word for perception, avenia, is actually changed to nama rupa intentionally. So why? Because rupa is reality. Nama is what we make of it. We name it. So we take reality and we put names on it. And the way that the reason that we try to name everything is because we’re trying to take control over it. And we have the delusion that if I can name something, I own it. That in fact you could see that that’s what was happening in Adam, to Adam, in the, in the Genesis, before he started eating the wrong apples. He was out there naming all the animals. He was becoming the gardener who owns everything by naming it. And so we don’t really have to name stuff so much. We can just observe it, just see it. And so when you’re trying to understand, trying to take control because you know, that we’re, we have a kind of a built in thing that we got to know what it is. I got to know whether in the dark, is that a belt laying on the floor, is it a snake? And so this is built right into our DNA. The reality is if you don’t go close, you don’t need to know the difference between it’s a snake and a rope. Doesn’t matter. It’s only when you want to own it that you want to find out what it is. And in fact, you want to on that regard. By the way, my mom has. My mom had an old story when she says that at one time when she was a teenager that they lived down by the river. And one evening they came in at about sundown and the dog immediately rushed into the room and grabbed this snake by the head and started shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking this head, the snake. And when they turned the lights on, they figured that they found out that the dog himself had made a mistake, that it was grandpa’s belt, that the dog was shaking. It wasn’t a snake at all, but the dog had named it as a snake without actually looking at what it was. He immediately jumped on that belt. You’d have thought that he’d have gotten the intent that the intention would be that when that belt buckle starts slapping on the side of the head, he could figure out it was not a snake. So this is the whole point then of this talk is, is that our dissatisfaction comes from our ignorance, not our greed. Our language depends upon our attitude. And if we don’t know what our attitude is, and how can we possibly change our attitude? And when we’re out perceiving things, be careful that you jump to conclusions about what something is without a thorough investigation. And when we spend our time investigating, which by the way, is another way of saying we spend more time looking on the outside, we look to see, is that a belt? Is that belt slithering across the floor? Or did we see that belt and just jump on it because it looked like a snake? Or better still, if you think it’s the belt and you’re not looking at it, that belt may start slithering. So we need to pay attention to the outside world, but we also more importantly need to start paying attention to the inside world. Because some of those belts that you think of could quite possibly be snakes. They’re unwholesome thoughts. And those unwholesome thoughts come from an attitude that we have. And that attitude is almost always the attitude of having the attitude of being a victim. We’re all trained victims. We were born as a victim. A baby can’t do hardly anything, can’t feed itself, can’t diaper itself, can’t walk, even. So we start off as victims, and then our parents make sure we stay victims. They order us around, they tell us to go to school, all of this kind of thing. And so we actually not just victims, because of our DNA and because of our birthday, we’re trained victims. We go through a training process that’s called socialization. If we don’t go through that process of socialization, we’re going to be barbarians. Let’s hear it for barbarians. Let’s become a barbarian again. Yay. Enough of these rules, Enough of this socialization. Let’s come out of our socialization and come into a joyful place. But we can only do that by seeing. And we can only see by looking. And looking is exactly the opposite of ignorance. The Buddha was really good, really big on right noble looking over and over and over again. Let’s not jump to conclusions, let’s keep investigating. The same thing is true with their mind. Don’t jump to conclusions. Look and look again and look again. Look at the body, look at your feelings, look at the way you’re thinking, your attitude. Because only by seeing what’s real right now, by looking, can you change it. If you’re ignorant to it, you can’t change. You’re going to be stuck in that zooka. But if you could see what it is by investigating. So this brings us home to the point about this needs to be gathered together, to gather these faculties together, to bring the satipatthana together, doing it repeatedly, over and over and over again. Bringing this stuff together is what will unify the mind. This is the context that we need to use for the word concentration. If we’re going to use the word concentration for the definition of the word samadhi, we have to understand that the word samadhi actually means collectiveness. To bring that integration of the body, the feeling, the mind, the mind’s objects, into a unified mind. Another way of saying it is that within the context of the ego, the super ego and the ID are the parent and adult and the child. That parent and that child need to rebond, need to bring things together. We need to nurture ourselves. Rather than criticizing ourselves, when we’re criticizing ourselves, we’re tearing ourselves apart. But when we’re nurturing to ourselves, when we bring things together, that’s the concentration, that’s the unification, becoming one whole person rather than remaining the crowd. And so that’s the last thing that we can add to that is the satipatthana while we’re looking and investigating and continuing to investigate. That’s the same thing as drawing things in, drawing things together, making it whole, making it complete, bringing in unity, which brings then about. You heard of many of the New Agers and the Buddhists talk about duality. Well, we’re all in that duality when we’re not watching what’s going on. But we unify things. We bring it together and become at one with, not just our. In our own mind, but we become at one with. With our environment also. You become part of the whole. You are the whole. So Jesus says, I and my father are one. And most Christians completely misunderstand that. In fact, the word father is the wrong word for it when he said abba. And abba actually has a better definition when you use the word about or above. So that stuff which is about you, we often become disjointed with because we’re making perceptions, we’re making decisions about it. But when we continue to look and see what’s really there, that’s when we begin to unify our mind, which also unifies with our environment. And you become whole, you become unified. That is our own ignorance that keeps us separated, keeps us in delusion, keeps us in a state of dissatisfaction. But by investigating and investigating and investigating the body, the mind, the feelings, the mental objects, all of that stuff, we become more connected, more unified. You become whole. But if we use the word concentration, a lot of people will miss. They’ll think, oh, he’s concentrated, he’s doing this. Rather than, yay, yay. That’s concentration. Does anybody have any questions about this? Jamie, you look like you’re really enjoying this conversation. Yeah, yeah, I am.

Speaker B: I enjoyed the. Yeah, especially the different timescales of stuff that you can be mindful to. The different things in Satipatthana, like the thoughts are coming and going so quickly and maybe then the verbalizations, the stuff you’re saying to yourself is like a. Easier to grab onto, easier to like investigate because it’s coming out slower and. Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. These just four things to remember. Yeah, very good. I guess.

Dhammarato: Yeah.

Speaker B: It’s funny, it reminds me, like sometimes if you’re being mindful of your thought, sometimes I notice I’m like monologuing to myself in my head. But a lot of the time the thought has already come and gone of what I’m going to say. I have A thought, and then the next five or 10 seconds, I’m just talking to myself, doing a little theater in my head. Say, like taking a character and talking. And maybe sometimes you can just dispense with that. You don’t actually need to say everything you think in your head if you don’t want to.

Dhammarato: Very good. Very good. Deidre, do you have any final remarks about this? Maybe you could take some of this stuff to that concert you’re going to perform.

Speaker E: Yeah, that.

Dhammarato: That would.

Speaker E: Would have been my final remark. I really have input now to. To mention the great quality and the great. Yeah. Happiness. That’s if you follow the Dhamma. You never know how we’re. Who I’m going to reach. You never know. I’ll. I’ll point them out also to this Sangha.

Dhammarato: How about you, Ross? You have anything. Final remarks? I don’t really have anything to say. Just.

Speaker C: Thank you, everyone.

Dhammarato: How about you, David? Any final things to say?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You often make a simile with concentrated orange juice. All right.

Dhammarato: That’s the wrong kind of concentration. That’s removing some of the best parts of it, taking the water out of it. And the water is the best part of it.

Speaker C: Yeah, you can. You can say you’re. You’re separating the orange part from the water. Or you can say the orange part is being gathered together. So it’s. The orange part is becoming samadhi.

Dhammarato: Well, then all we’d have to do is to stir it up. The fact is, is that they. They took the water out. It’s not samadhi.

Speaker C: Yeah, but the orange. You can say it two ways, though. You can say that they took the water out, or you can say that the orange has been brought together.

Dhammarato: But like I said, nobody can drink frozen, concentrated orange juice. We need to put the water back in. So that’s the kind of concentration that we don’t want, which is actually struggling. Don’t struggle. Struggling is not real concentration. It’s not the noble concentration. The noble concentration is over and over and over again. Start slowly bringing all this stuff together. See these connections between the mind and the feelings and the mind and the body and between the body and the feelings. It’s right there in the annapanasati Sutra, step 7 and 8. Seeing these things and then bringing them together. See the. The conditioners. See how these things condition one another. That’s what helps bring things together, is by seeing the interconnections, that they’re not disjointed. That’s ignorance. So does anybody else have any last things? To say. If not, I’m going to turn it over to you, Mikey, to give a last bring this thing home.

Speaker D: Yeah, this is a splendid Sangha call. Glad to see so many good friends here today. And yeah, friendly reminder, you can cultivate a wholesome attitude right now. You don’t have to wait. And also another friendly reminder to check out the OpenSongAFoundation.org website.

Dhammarato: Yeah. Become integrated on web online. Become friends, join together. I’ve noticed, by the way, recently there’s been a lot of activity.

Speaker D: Yeah. And there’s a lot of new features. If you go to the profile page, there’s new features such as a wall. Now that’s pretty cool. Works similar to the Facebook wall. And also if you’re listening to this on YouTube, go ahead and hit the subscribe button and hit the bell and give this video a like leave us a comment. Helps the YouTube algorithm whenever people do this sort of thing so that more people can see these sorts of videos.

Dhammarato: Yes, that’s a good point. Thank you for mentioning that. All right, everybody, thank you so much. This has been delightful. I really like to see all of you smiling faces. It’s sometimes a big surprise. Thank you. Take care, everyone.

Overview of This Dhamma Talk

This Dhamma talk focuses on the second Noble Truth, the cause of dukkha (dissatisfaction, suffering). It argues that the root cause isn’t external circumstances, but rather ignorance (avijja) of how our minds, bodies, feelings, and attitudes interrelate. This ignorance leads to craving and aversion, stemming from a fundamental sense of lack. The speaker emphasizes the importance of mindfulness (sati) using the four foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana) – body, feeling, mind states (attitude), and mind objects (thoughts) – to recognize these patterns. He stresses the need to shift from a victim mentality to take responsibility for our own experiences by observing, remembering, and integrating all aspects of our being, thereby reducing our dukkha. The talk encourages a practical approach to sati in daily life, not just formal meditation, and highlights that the concept of concentration (samadhi) is not about forced effort, but about collecting and integrating the faculties of the mind to bring a sense of unity and wholeness.

Outline of this Dhamma Talk

• [00:06-0:24] Introduction:

  • Welcoming participants, setting context (time difference between Europe and Thailand).
  • Acknowledgement of the number of participants.

• [0:24-0:43] Introducing the Second Noble Truth:

  • Topic: Second Noble Truth, which is dukkha-samudaya (the arising of dukkha).
  • Definition: Cause of dissatisfaction/suffering.
  • Explanation: Dukkha exists everywhere, in both humans and animals.

• [1:01-2:27] Humans as Experts of Dissatisfaction:

  • Humans are “expert” at dissatisfaction because we are taught it and perpetuate it.
  • Analogy: “Memes” as mental viruses, propagating bad ideas that make us sick (reference to Richard Dawkins).

• [2:27-3:39] Internal vs External Attribution of Dissatisfaction:

  • Spiritual disease = dukkha, manifesting as not being “good enough”.
    • Misconception: Blaming external forces (fault of others, God, Devil).
  • Interpretation: God/Devil reside within; problems are from within.
    • Analogy: Kingdom of God is at hand/within you.
  • Core message: Our problems and pleasures are not to be found outside.

• [3:39-4:00] Dukkha as Self-Created:

  • Dukkha arises from our own creation, not inherent reality.
  • Interpretation: “Everything is already okay”, we poison it with the idea that “things need to be fixed”.

• [4:00-5:03] Blame and Fault-Finding:

  • Pattern: Blaming self or others, looking for fault where there is none.
  • Emphasis: We are the source of this “fault,” it’s not inherent in the world.

• [4:43-5:03] Initial Definition of Cause of Dukkha:

  • Revisiting a statement by Ivan: cause of dukkha is “we create it ourselves”.
  • Correcting Interpretation: While partially true, needs further specificity.

• [5:03-6:20] Three Interrelated Causes of Dukkha :

  • Three roots: lobha (greed), dosa (ill-will), moha (ignorance).
    • Lobha (Greed/Craving):
    • Explanation: Starts with liking → wanting → craving → lust.
    • Dosa (Ill-will/Aversion):
    • Explanation: Dislike leads to wanting to get rid of it.
  • Interrelation: Lust and ill will are two sides of the same coin, flipping randomly.

• [6:20-6:49] Ignorance as the Core Issue:

  • Moha (Ignorance): The root cause of lobha and dosa.
  • Explanation: Blaming externals rather than choices we make about our wants.

• [6:49-7:39] Analogy of the Restaurant Menu:

  • Analogy: Illustrates how desire is new when looking at menu.
  • Explanation: We develop desire based on the menu, then are unhappy when we can’t have it, forgetting the desire is self-created.
  • Key point: Ignorance is not keeping track of our own changes.
  • Interpretation: Things are as they are, our minds change; our desires are brand new.

• [7:39-8:17] Application to Anapanasati:

  • Anapanasati (mindfulness of breathing) helps to see the second noble truth.
  • Core message: We’re in dukkha because of stupidity, forgetting and being unaware.

• [8:17-9:50] The Importance of Remembering:

  • Practice Goal: Develop the quality of sati (mindfulness), to remember to see how we change ignorantly
  • Recognizing: Things are always changing, but so are our wants and aversions.
    • Example: Not blaming the waiter for lack of menu item, but seeing the desire.

• [9:50-10:53] Generalizing the Restaurant Analogy:

  • Example: Restaurant menu extended to seeing others, cars, objects, etc.
  • Phassa (Perception): Seeing, perceiving as desirable → liking → wanting → craving.
  • Interpretation: Craving comes from not having things.

• [10:53-11:32] Main Cause of Dissatisfaction:

  • Summary: Wanting things we don’t have is a main cause of dissatisfaction.
  • Further explanation: We don’t crave all the time, but intermittently triggered.
  • Return to analogy: Look at the menu, see the food, desire it, and then disappointment when not available.

• [11:32-12:08] Ignorance as the Key:

  • Key to the Second Noble Truth: It’s not about the waiter, but our own ignorance and our changing desires.
  • Practice goal: We are not watching what we’re doing.

• [12:08-13:08] Collecting Our Thoughts:

  • Goal: Start to remember, to “collect thoughts” to improve recall.
  • Analogy: Limited capacity for tracking things (Bandler & Grinder’s 7+/-2 rule).
    • Explanation of the 7+/-2 rule and how it applies to managerial tracking of employees.

• [13:08-14:17] Tracking the Four Things:

  • Core message: We only need to track four things.
  • Questioning a participant: What’s real about you?

• [14:17-15:20] First Element: The Body:

  • Explanation: The body is the first element to track, starts with the breath.
  • Questioning a participant: What are the four things?
  • Further explanation: Body includes rib cages, muscles, breathing.

• [15:20-15:54] Four Foundations of Mindfulness:

  • Identification: The four things are body, feelings, attitude, thoughts.
  • Explanation: These are the four foundations of mindfulness (satipatthana).
  • Further explanation: The 3rd element (mind) is actually the “state of mind” or attitude.

• [15:54-17:01] Interconnectedness:

  • Interrelation: Tracking breath tracks everything; body breathes by habit.
  • Practice: Deliberate breathing impacts automatic breathing habits.
  • Summary: Only need to track four things: body, feeling, mind, mind’s objects.

• [17:01-18:27] Five Aggregates:

  • Alternative framework: The five khandhas (aggregates): body, feelings, perception, consciousness, and sankhara
  • Sankhara: Three kinds: in body, mind, and mental formations.
  • Focus: Body’s sankhara (muscle memory): learned through practice (e.g., guitar, basketball).
  • Historical note: Buddha’s teaching of muscle memory 2500 years ago (Sutta 9).

• [18:27-20:40] Mindfulness of Bodily Actions:

  • Example: Famous violinist not mindful of his hands when offstage (scratching, picking nose)
  • Importance: We need to be mindful of body’s actions, even automatic ones.
    • Practice goal: Slow down actions to become aware and enjoy.
    • Key point: Watch what hands/face do, don’t just move absentmindedly.

• [20:40-21:46] Mind as a Muscle:

  • Question: Is the mind a muscle too?
  • Analogy: The mind is like a muscle that can be trained.
    • Further elaboration: Mind has its own memory, an electrochemical process.
    • Counter argument: Muscles are “dumb”; “blood flows in, blood flows out.”
    • Response: Well-trained muscles do have a type of memory.

• [21:46-22:53] Martial Arts Example:

  • Analogy: Martial arts (Okana/karate) demonstrate muscle memory.
  • Explanation: Just thinking about movements triggers muscle memory.
  • Key point: Muscles have a type of mind and memory of their own.

• [22:53-23:40] Fingertip Sensitivity:

  • Explanation: Fingertips have more neurons than the eye, highly sensitive.
  • Analogy: Illustrates how a musician can train hands for fine motor skills
  • Example: A violinist with large hands and how they are trained for the violin.

• [23:40-26:33] The Pianist Analogy:

  • Analogy: Pianist plays automatically while talking to a woman or being interrogated
  • Interpretation: Attention is not on hands, but hands are well trained and perform from muscle memory
  • Key point: Practice, like the musician learning, creates automatic behavior.

• [26:33-27:56] Anapanasati and the Here Now:

  • Core principle: In anapanasati, we need to pay attention in the “here and now” to what the body is doing.
  • Further discussion: We only pay attention when we are learning/practicing.

• [27:56-29:26] Continuing to Pay Attention

  • Core principle: We need to continue to pay attention to what the body is doing.
    • Explanation: Examples: Anxiety not just a mental state but is also a physical state.
  • Explanation: Blood flows due to adrenaline, and our muscles tense up.
  • Example: Old jungle fight-or-flight response, but now with no outlet.

• [29:26-30:08] Body and the Mind:

  • Further analysis: Body responses are a habit, not just an external trigger (boss).
    • Interpretation: The boss in your mind is the cause of anxiety not in the office.
  • Explanation: Most are unaware of the mind-body connection.

• [30:08-30:59] Interrelation of the Four Foundations:

  • Core principle: The four foundations of mindfulness are interconnected.
  • Emphasis: See the interrelation, not just individual elements.
    • Explanation: See the unified whole of a human being.
    • Analysis: Thoughts affect the body; body sensations affect feelings.

• [30:59-31:28] The Role of Attitude:

  • Explanation: Anxious/uptight feelings come from our thoughts about anxiety
  • Emphasis: Attitude is the most important: We have a victim mentality.
  • Analysis: If you are friends with boss, you will not have anxiety about them.

• [31:28-31:50] Second Noble Truth Again:

  • Reiteration: Dukkha arises from ignorance of the relationships between mind, body, and feelings.
  • Example: Sutta 111 (“one by one as they occur”).

• [31:50-32:24] Question about Sequence:

  • Question: Which foundation comes first?
    • Answer: One by one as they occur.
  • Interpretation: When these things occur, we’re usually ignorant to it.

• [32:24-34:49] Anxiety Example:

  • Example: Anxiety arises in meditation.
  • Inquiry: Is this anxiety new or old?
  • Interpretation: Old patterns surface, revealing sensations in the body.
  • Analysis: Tightness in chest comes from thoughts about the boss
  • Further analysis: Thoughts about the boss come from a victim attitude.
  • All four foundations are working together: attitude → thoughts → body → feelings

• [34:49-35:37] Interrelatedness of the Second Noble Truth

  • Core principle: All interrelated: body, feelings, mental state, fleeting thoughts.
  • Explanation: A 1/10th second thought can trigger an hour of adrenaline and a feeling of being uptight.
  • Emphasis: Anapanasati is practiced for the fulfillment of satipatthana.

• [35:37-37:22] Agitation in the Body

  • Explanation: Four foundations are a lot to track, especially the body itself
    • Example: Bus station feet, wiggling and shaking, showing restlessness
    • Explanation: See how the body shows agitation, how the body reflects mental state.
    • Misconception: Not about toe tapping to music but toe tapping to garbage in the mind.

• [37:22-38:07] The Body as a Mirror

  • Application: Let’s make lemonade out of that lemon.
  • Core principle: Body is a mirror to what’s happening in mind on a faster level.
  • Advice: Pay attention to the body, speech, and everything else as if someone is watching.
    • Analogy: God is watching (Southern Baptist upbringing).

• [38:07-39:27] Mindfulness in Daily Actions

  • Core message: If God is watching, we should be too.
    • Explanation: Observe body shifts, the way we use hands.
    • Analogy: Opening the door to the house when in a hurry to go to the toilet.

• [39:27-40:35] Absentmindedness Example

  • Example: Where are the keys? Sloppiness due to not paying attention to hands.
  • Example: Where is your cell phone?
    • Interpretation: Remember the last time you had it, remember where you put it.

• [40:35-41:23] Mindfulness in Everyday Life:

  • Emphasis: Practice anapanasati in daily life, not just formal sitting.
  • Application: Watch body, when you scratch your face know you’re scratching.
  • Advice: Slow down behaviors to be present and mindful.
  • Focus: Train to set things down mindfully, knowing exactly where they are.

• [41:23-42:59] Mindfulness of Speech:

  • Further practice: Be mindful of speech, the kind of words we’re using.
  • Explanation: Language reflects thought patterns
    • Advice: Choose a list of words to watch, train language to be wholesome.
    • Examples of unwholesome words: “Try,” “hard,” “job.”
  • Interpretation: Language is a mirror into the mind.

• [42:59-44:20] Low-Class Language and Attitude:

  • Advice: Don’t just look at words, but attitude.
  • Interpretation: Low-class words can be okay, but depends upon attitude.
    • Example: “Screw you” can have a positive meaning if it is an attitude of joy.
  • Further analysis: Watch the tone of mind, language, and common expressions (e.g., “What the fuck,” “Oh my God”)
  • Key point: Voices/mouth are also part of the body.

• [44:20-45:27] Feelings Associated with the Body

  • Core message: Most feelings associated with body.
    • Example: We dislike fear (adrenaline), but we seek it in some activities (horror movies, roller coasters)
    • Interpretation: Dukkha is in the fact that we don’t like it sometimes, but we do like it other times.
    • Key point: People like the sensations of fear/adrenaline.

• [45:27-46:03] Fear and Meditation

  • Analogy: People love to seek out fear on roller coasters, but don’t like it when it arises in meditation.
    • Summary: Back to attitude as the key.

• [46:03-47:00] Attitude and the Mind:

  • Key to Anapanasati: Look at your attitude, not just emotions.
    • Analysis: Mana (intellectual mind) versus citta (reptilian mind, attitudes/feelings).
    • Core principle: Citta is where the seed of attitudes/emotions come from.

• [47:00-47:43] Paying Attention to The Reptilian Mind:

  • Explanation: How do we pay attention to the Citta?
  • Answer: By noticing language (internal thoughts, words spoken).
    • Further analysis: Watch expletives when surprises happen (happy or negative).

• [47:43-48:21] Wise Observation

  • Core message: Let’s not be ignorant, but wise by watching what’s going on.
  • Questioning a participant: Is it the attitude, not just the words?
  • Answer: Yes, attitude underlying the language is the most important.

• [48:21-49:06] “Sorry” Example:

  • Previous assignment: Watch the word “sorry”.
  • Analysis: “Sorry” is often a victim’s word, blaming self.
    • Further analysis: “Sorry” can have different attitudes behind it.

• [49:06-50:36] “Sorry” as a Joke:

  • Analogy: Saturday Night Live skit where actor says “I’m sorry” in a funny way, despite being intentionally dressed up that way.
  • Interpretation: Not really sorry, uses it to get a laugh.
  • Application: Pay attention to what we’re saying before we say it, change attitude through language.

• [50:36-51:27] The Mind as the Forerunner:

  • Interpretation: Mind (attitude) is the forerunner.
    • Focus: Be careful of what you like/don’t like because it is the forerunner.
  • Inquiry: If attitude is the forerunner, how can we catch up?
  • Explanation: See relationships to the body, language, and thoughts.

• [51:27-52:17] Attitude as a Tendency:

  • Explanation: The word attitude is good for psychology but also for engineering.
  • Analogy: Building with an “attitude” will fall in that direction in an earthquake.
  • Application: Our mind leans a certain way (attitude), and that’s how we crash.

• [52:17-52:49] Attitude Determines Experience

  • Questioning a participant: Does attitude determine our experiences?
  • Answer: Yes, we manufacture our experience based upon our attitude.

• [52:49-53:45] Roller Coaster Analogy:

  • Analogy: Johnny on roller coaster with Grandma (different attitudes).
  • Interpretation: Johnny enjoys, Granny clutches purse because of different attitudes.
  • Summary: Our attitude is the “forerunner.”

• [53:45-54:27] Four Foundations as Interrelated:

  • Summary: The four foundations of mindfulness are interrelated.
  • Explanation: Need to look at each one individually, one by one as they occur.
  • Reiteration: Second Noble Truth = not greed/attachment.

• [54:27-55:15] Attachment (Upadana)

  • Interpretation: It’s not greed that is the cause but also attachment.
  • Corrective note: Buddha speaks of wise attachment.
  • Advice: Attach to the present moment as well as to the teachings.

• [55:15-56:07] Dhammma Everywhere:

  • Play on words: “Dhamma, Dhamma everywhere, look at all those thoughts that stink”.
  • Analogy: Reinterpreting “water water everywhere not a drop to drink”.
  • Advice: Pay attention to what is going on.

• [56:07-57:31] Sutta 111 and Perception

  • Return to Sutta 111: Sariputta understanding in fourth Jhana.
  • Key point: Perception leads to feelings (stop perceiving = stop feeling).
  • Explanation: Perception is our mind’s transformation of reality.
    • Example: Tree – you need the word and images of trees to see it as a “tree”.

• [57:31-58:35] Discursive Thought and Perception:

  • Explanation: Discursive thought (naming) takes control of reality.
  • Analogy: Namarupa (name and form): Rupa is reality, nama is our naming/interpreting it.
  • Interpretation: Naming is how we try to control things.
    • Analogy: Adam naming the animals in Genesis, becoming “owner” through naming

• [58:35-59:14] Observation Instead of Control:

  • Core principle: We don’t have to name, we can just observe.
  • Explanation: Trying to understand is trying to take control.
    • Explanation: Built in DNA, to know “is it a belt or a snake?” in the dark.
  • Key point: No need to identify if we don’t want to own something.

• [59:14-60:20] Dog and Belt Analogy:

  • Analogy: Dog attacking a belt thinking it’s a snake, not carefully observing.
  • Interpretation: Dog named the belt a snake without looking; dog made a mistake.
  • Key Point: Shows that we sometimes jump to conclusions without really looking.

• [60:20-60:48] Cause of Dissatisfaction Revisited:

  • Core message: Dissatisfaction comes from our ignorance, not greed.
  • Summary: Language depends on attitude and we must know our attitude.
  • Key point: Need to change how we perceive things and not jump to conclusions.

• [60:48-61:35] Outside vs Inside

  • Core principle: Pay attention to the outside and especially the inside world.
    • Explanation: Some “belts” are actually unwholesome thoughts which come from negative attitudes.
    • Misconception: We are trained to have a victim mentality

• [61:35-63:18] Trained Victims

  • Further explanation: All trained victims, socialization trains us to stay that way.
  • Call to action: Let’s become barbarians again: out of the rules, into a joyful place.
  • Key point: Seeing is the opposite of ignorance.

• [63:18-64:23] Noble Looking and Investigation:

  • Emphasis: Let’s do right noble looking; investigate again and again.
  • Application: Don’t jump to conclusions about the mind.
  • Key point: See, see again, and see again (body, feeling, mind, attitude).
  • Interpretation: Need to see what’s real to change it, can’t change what you are ignorant of.

• [64:23-65:31] Unification of the Mind:

  • Focus: We need to gather the faculties of the mind, unify the satipatthana.
  • Key point: This integration is what will unify the mind.
  • Redefinition of Samadhi (concentration): It is “collectiveness,” an integration.
  • Interpretation: Unify mind, body, feeling, and mental objects.
  • Analogy: Ego, super-ego, ID (parent/adult/child) need to be brought together.

• [65:31-66:08] Nurturing Ourselves

  • Application: Nurture yourself rather than criticizing yourself.
    • Key point: Bring things together and unification, becoming whole.
  • Further analysis: Not remaining “crowd”, but becoming whole.

• [66:08-67:03] Duality and Unity

  • Application: We’re in duality when we don’t watch what is going on.
  • Key principle: Unify by bringing it together, become one with self and environment.
  • Analogy: Jesus: “I and my Father are one.”
  • Interpretation: Father is a bad translation, Abba or Above is better
  • Explanation: Become disjointed with the “above” when making perceptions.
  • Key Point: By continuing to look, begin to unify with self/environment.

• [67:03-67:42] Ignorance Keeps Us Separate

  • Core message: Ignorance is what keeps us separate and in delusion.
    • Practice: Investigate and connect (body, mind, feelings, mental objects).
    • Problem: Many misinterpret concentration.
    • Recommendation: “Yay, yay!” – that is the right kind of concentration.

• [67:58-68:50] Question Time

  • Open up questions about the talk.

• [68:50-69:35] Jamie’s Remarks

  • Key points: Appreciated time scales of things (fast thoughts, slow verbalizations).
  • Further explanation: Monologuing in head, dispense with that.

• [69:35-70:15] D’s Remarks

  • Key point: Appreciated the teaching and will apply to concert.

• [70:15-70:22] Ross’s Remarks

  • Key Point: Thank you.

• [70:22-72:50] David’s Remarks and Concentration Analogy

  • Key Point: Example: Concentrated orange juice, where the water is removed, is the wrong kind of concentration.
  • Further explanation: Separating orange from the water or orange is being gathered together.
  • Problem: You can’t drink frozen orange juice
    • Further point: It’s not about struggling, but integrating, step 7 & 8 of the Anapansati Sutra.
    • Advice: Bring stuff together and see connections.

• [72:50-73:05] Last Chance for Remarks

  • Closing comments, call to next speaker

• [73:05-74:16] Mike’s Closing Remarks:

  • Reminder: Cultivate a wholesome attitude now.
  • Reminder: Check out oponga foundation.org website, there is activity there.
  • Note: Profile page features a wall now.
  • YouTube call to action: Subscribe, like, comment.

• [74:16-74:37] Final Remarks and Closing:

  • Gratitude to participants.
  • Enjoys seeing all smiling faces and ends with a surprising and funny “left barbarians”.

Notes on Terms Translations and Western Buddhism

• Precise Use of Terms and Translations:
  • Dhammarato consistently uses Pali terms (e.g., dukkha, sati, anapanasati, satipatthana, lobha, dosa, moha, phassa, namarupa, samadhi) and explains them in context.
  • He clarifies the distinction between mana and citta.
  • He redefines samadhi as collectiveness, not forced concentration.
  • He discusses the deeper meaning of Abba.
  • There’s a correction of the translation of perception viññana to namarupa.
• Distinctions between Traditional and Western Interpretations:
  • He frames the second noble truth within the traditional framework, but reframes some concepts in a more modern, accessible context (e.g., using “memes” to explain the transmission of dissatisfaction).
  • He questions the common understanding of concentration and offers an alternative.
  • He makes it clear to challenge concepts like “sorry” as a victim mentality.

  • How to Practice

• The talk emphasizes practical application of sati in daily life (e.g., watching body movements, speech, setting down keys mindfully).
• He explicitly mentions how to apply anapanasati while going about one’s day.
• He explains how to recognize unwholesome patterns in the body, mind, and thoughts
• He uses everyday examples (restaurant menu, bus station, keys, cell phone) to make the concepts relatable.
• He redefines old concepts like “concentrate” into something doable and real.
• He highlights the importance of observing the tone of our language in connection to our attitude.

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